


Come and Go

by deadlyrainbows



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Complete, Karma Chameleon, One Shot, Timeless 1x13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-09-21 07:47:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9538442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadlyrainbows/pseuds/deadlyrainbows
Summary: Alternate ending for Timeless 1x13,  Karma Chameleon. Wyatt and Rufus are back in the Lifeboat after trying to save Jessica, but what will they do if it didn’t work?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on tumblr, and before the episode aired, so it doesn't line up perfectly with actually happened to them in 1983. Call it an AU?

Exhausted, Wyatt dropped into his seat in the Lifeboat. There. He had done it. He had done everything within his power to save Jessica. His wife. He slumped forward and dropped his head in his hands. Would it work? Would all of this be for nothing? He didn’t move as Rufus sidled past him to get to the pilot’s seat. There was a moment of silence, and then a hand landed on his shoulder.    


“Wyatt. You okay?” Rufus had been tense and anxious for the entire mission (if going AWOL and stealing a time machine could still be considered a mission). Now, he just sounded tired.

Wyatt lifted his head enough to meet Rufus’s eye. His teammate- his friend- was waiting patiently for an answer. His face was concerned, but not pitying.   


“I don’t know yet.” Wyatt sighed. He ran a trembling hand through his hair. “We don’t get a second chance at his, Rufus. If it didn’t work… I don’t know what to do next…”   


Rufus nodded and furrowed his brow in thought. “If this didn’t work, Wyatt… this is what you do.” He squeezed the hand on Wyatt’s shoulder. “You move on.” Rufus raised his hand to stop an already-protesting Wyatt. “Hear me out, buddy. You said it yourself. You won’t get a second chance to save Jessica. I know it’s not what you want to hear…” He sighed and his eyes softened. “But maybe that’s the way it has to be.”   


Wyatt stared icily at the steel floor of the ship, his fists clenched and shoulders tightened. No, that was not what he wanted to hear. He had tried life without Jessica and it was no life at all. It was lonely and it was heartbreaking, and he was tired of it. The time machine and the possibility of saving her was all that had kept him going. No. He couldn’t stop, because without Jessica, what was he supposed to do?   


“You have to keep living, Wyatt.” It was as though Rufus had read his mind. Wyatt looked up wearily.    


“For what?” Wyatt breathed, afraid that there might be an answer.   


Rufus smiled. Just as before, he did not look full of pity. He looked full of encouragement, and possibility, and love. “You don’t get a second chance at Jessica, Wyatt… but maybe you can get a second chance at life.” The hand on Wyatt’s shoulder gave him a small push. “You have to stop living in the past. You need to start moving forward.”   


Wyatt’s breath came in shudders as he tried to keep the overwhelming feeling of fear from spilling out of him. “Even if it has to be alone?” He asked, his jaw set.   


Rufus shook his head. “C’mon, man. You’re not alone.” He took his hand off of Wyatt’s shoulder and leaned back in his seat, giving him that reassuring smile. “You’ve always got me.” He nodded towards Lucy’s empty seat. “You’ve got us.”   


Wyatt looked over the empty chair and felt an odd pang in his chest, a separate feeling from the whirlwind of emotions inside of him. The chair didn’t look right without Lucy in it. She shouldn’t be back home trying to cover for them on her own. She should be there with them. She should be fumbling with her seatbelt and wrestling with some hideous 80’s getup. He should be helping her with the buckles, and making fun of her hair, and joking with Rufus… Rufus. Wyatt’s eyes snapped back to him, the smiling man who risked everything to help him save Jessica. There would never be words for how grateful Wyatt was to him.   


Whatever it was that Rufus saw on Wyatt’s face, it was apparently enough to satisfy him. “Alright.” He said, sounding mildly victorious. “We’re good to go back, then?”   


“Yeah…” said Wyatt, somehow more exhausted than before. “Yeah, let’s go.”   


Rufus clapped Wyatt on the back and spun his chair around to face the console. Wyatt fastened his restraints and smirked, giving an unexpected chuckle.   


“What?” Rufus asked warily, looking over his shoulder as though Wyatt might be starting to crack under the stress after all.   


“Did you even hear yourself? _‘Stop living in the past?’_ You get what it is we do here, right?” Wyatt’s face split into a grin. He couldn’t help himself.

Rufus shook his head ruefully and unsuccessfully tried to suppress a wide smile of his own. “After all I’ve done for you, this is the thanks I get.”   


“Let’s go Rufus. Lucy is going to be so pissed at us when we get back.” Wyatt smiled at the thought. As the time machine whirred to life, he leaned back and closed his eyes. By the time they landed, he swore he’d be ready for whatever the present had to throw at him.

 

* * *

After the Lifeboat landed shakily but safely back in the present, Rufus and Wyatt sat staring at the closed hatch. Rufus’s anxiety was back with a vengeance. He wrung his hands and took deep breaths, but they did nothing to soothe him. “There’s a world of hurt waiting for us out there, Wyatt.” He rambled nervously. “Mason and Agent Christopher… They are going to rain down hell on us. We are so screwed.”   


Wyatt nodded. “Yep.” He hesitated, and then stood up abruptly. “Well, at least we’re screwed together.” He raised his eyebrows. “You ready?”   


Rufus shook his head. “No, but if we don’t get out there they’ll all come in here… and it’s kind of cramped as it is.” Rufus hit the button to open the hatch. Wyatt led the way into the warehouse, where an entire team of FBI special agents was waiting with their guns trained on the two of them. 

When Wyatt emerged first, he raised his hands to show he was unarmed. “Don’t shoot!” he called. His booming voice sounded a lot steadier than he felt. He heard Rufus clumsily stumble out behind him and had to refrain from rolling his eyes. 

Special Agent Denise Christopher marched her way up the platform and stopped in front of them, inches from Wyatt’s face. She was livid. “What in the hell were you two thinking, stealing the time machine?” she seethed.

“With all due respect, ma’am,” Wyatt said, arms still in the air, “Can we maybe have this conversation without all of these guns on us?”

“Please.” Added Rufus, his voice a pitch higher than usual.   


“Do you really think that you have the right to ask me for anything?” Agent Christopher questioned incredulously. “I’m not going to ask you again. What. Did. You. Do?”   


“I’ll tell you every detail, ma’am. Every damn one.” Wyatt struggled to keep his voice level. “But first, there’s something I have to know. Is…” His voice wavered. He cleared his throat. “Is my wife, Jessica Logan, dead or alive?”   


Agent Christopher’s face went blank with shock, followed by dawning comprehension. “Is that where you were?” She whispered.   


“Ma’am.” Wyatt muttered roughly. “Please. Just tell me.” 

Her eyes gave her away. Unlike Rufus’s, they were full of the pity Wyatt hated so much. Still, he waited for the words.

“I’m sorry, Wyatt… your wife is still dead.”   


He felt all of the air leave his chest. Still dead. He dropped his arms and grasped the railing at his side for support. Still dead. He could vaguely hear Agent Christopher telling the other agents to lower their guns. Jessica was still dead.   


Rufus’s hand on his back brought him back into reality. “You okay man?”   


“Yeah,” Wyatt took a deep breath, and then another. “I just need a minute.”   


“Okay. Right. Yeah.” Rufus looked to Agent Christopher and squared his shoulders. Mason had finally come forward to join them and looked ready to give Rufus an earful. “Before you guys say anything, we accept full responsibility for our actions.” Rufus blurted, catching them off-guard. “It was just us. Only us. Lucy didn’t have anything to do with it. Unless she tried to cover for us. Which I’m sure she didn’t, but if she did it you shouldn’t punish her, because she had no idea that we were going to do this.”

Agent Christopher shook her head, putting her hands up to slow him down. “Rufus, calm down, you’re not making any sense. What are you talking about?”   


“Lucy. She didn’t know we were going to steal the time machine. So if you’re going to punish anyone, it should be me and Wyatt. Lucy’s innocent, no matter what it looks like she did to cover for us.”   


Wyatt groaned and straightened up. They were going to get Lucy in even more trouble if Rufus didn’t shut his trap. He’d turned towards Rufus and had opened his mouth to tell him to shut up when he heard Agent Christopher say, “I’m sorry, Rufus, I still don’t understand. Who is Lucy?”   


Wyatt’s insides froze.

“What did you just say?” asked Rufus. His eyes were wide in alarm.   


Mason chimed in, “You keep saying ‘Lucy’, but we haven’t the faintest idea of who you’re talking about.”   


Wyatt whipped around and grabbed Agent Christopher by the shoulders, causing the surrounding agents to reflexively reach for their guns. He must have sounded wild and desperate, but he didn’t care. “Lucy. Lucy Preston. She’s a history professor. She’s  _ our _ history professor. You hired her to be our historian. Her sister Amy disappeared when Garcia Flynn messed with the Hindenburg, remember?” She didn’t look like remembered any of it, and Wyatt continued more fervently. “She’s about 5’5’ and she’s got brown hair and brown eyes and she… she…” He trailed off when he saw that her face was still blank. 

This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t what Wyatt had meant to happen. He released Agent Christopher and turned back to Rufus in disbelief. He looked just as horrified as Wyatt felt.

“Wyatt… what have we done?”   


Wyatt knew exactly what they had done.

They had erased Lucy.


End file.
